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Sunday, January 27, 2013

Information and Affirmation

@timrayner01 points out that so-called information-sharing is never neutral, disengaged - it is a positive act of communication.

"Don’t think of what you share as information. Even if what you share is information, by sharing it, you are telling the world that it is information that you affirm
in some way. It is the affirmation that counts. We share what we
love. Even when we share details about things we despise, they are
things we love to hate. Love is the key to understanding how we
contribute to social media commons. We populate the commons with
expressions of love."

So even scorn is a form of affirmation. The comedian who devotes his spleen to the latest reality show is thereby contributing (in a complex post-modern fashion) to the show's success. Daniel Smith describes this as alternative consumption, and sees Charlie Brooker as a modern version of Baudelaire.

The Royal Television Society may pretend that Charlie Brooker represents the high-brow alternative to Simon Cowell. But Brooker's material is basically the same as Cowell's, it just has a different sentiment. They obviously need each other.